"I'm not a Democrat, and I'm not a Republican. But I was just so glad about the results of the election on Tuesday that I sat and watched TV all day yesterday, my day off."
So said the friendly young grandmother sitting next to me at the sports-team practice. Let's call her Patricia.
Patricia isn't a policy wonk. She's not a political junkie. We are completely different in many, many ways. So it was very interesting to sit down and talk to her and hear what made her so ecstatic about the Democratic victory. What would make her vote Democratic, and proudly? Because to me she didn't seem to fit the profile I had in my head.
Patricia is in her late forties, or perhaps her early fifties, the matriarch of an extended-family household that includes her, her unmarried daughter, and a young grandson living together in one apartment in a dangerous neighborhood. Every morning, she wakes up at 3 am, and walks to work at the hotel where she is the front desk clerk.
Patricia has told me that her taxes eat up about a third of her paycheck, leaving her with a little more than the minimum wage for her hard work. "I've worked for the minimum wage before, and you just can't make ends meet. You can't eat on the minimum wage." She has her associate's degree, and is proud that her daughter, now in her mid-twenties, is about to finish her associate's degree. Patricia belongs to a union.
But she is also a card-carrying member of the NRA, and remembers that as a child in a large family, she and her siblings lived on venison and elk. "It's still my favorite," she says. She tells me she wishes that she had a little extra money, to be able to go camping once a year, to take a vacation and find a fishing spot in a very clean lake. "I know that they say money doesn't buy happiness, but I know that I'd be so happy if I just had a little more money to do things with." She is selling her car because she can't afford the payments.
Why was she so happy that the Democrats won, this NRA-belonging, tax-hating, hardworking independent voter?
"The Republicans were just getting too big for their britches. They were just getting too comfortable, thinking they could have whatever they wanted. The corruption was incredible. I want to see something get done and I think maybe now it will finally get done." It was as simple as that. It doesn't take much, does it?
The Patricias of the world are looking at us, waiting. What will we show them, in return for the confidence they have vested in us?